This invention relates generally to the termination of very fine wires such as employed in clock motors, telephone hand sets, appliance timers and in general, small coils, and more particularly it relates to a method, apparatus and product for effecting such termination wherein the steps of the method are performed by the apparatus which, upon completion of the termination, itself becomes the terminating connector.
The termination of small magnet wires has presented numerous difficulties, largely because of the fineness and inherent frailties of such wires. Particularly troublesome are the very small gauge magnet wires employed on coils employed in devices such as appliance timers, clock motors and telephone hand sets wherein the wire size is of the order of number thirty-two gauge to a number fifty gauge.
Currently, such very small magnet wires are terminated by a human operator who initiates the winding of the fine wire coils on the bobbin to be used in the timer or clock motor, for example, and then, at the completion of the winding, usually done by automatic equipment, manually twists the two free ends of the coil around the two ends of a pair of much heavier lead wires. The lead wires, with the magnet wires twisted therearound, are then dipped into a solder bath which is sufficiently hot to melt the rather tough insulation which is still on the magnet wires and to solder said magnet wires to the lead wires.
The afore-mentioned method of terminating very fine magnet wires presents certain problems. More specifically, since the wires are so fine and so frail, they can be broken internally within their insulation sheaths merely by being handled by the human operator, with the break being undetectable except by an electrical check. Occasionally, the operator will even believe the magnet wire has been wound around a lead wire, when in fact it has slipped away from between her fingers and has not been wound around the lead wire. On other occasions, the fine magnet wire may be completely broken at some point, including the insulation, and the assembler will not be aware of the break due to the fineness of the wire.
Since the damaged magnet wires are not easily detected, construction of the defective unit might be well along before discovery of the fault occurs. Because of the nature of the structure it is virtually impossible to repair the broken wire. As a result the entire assembly must be discarded.